The present invention relates to exercise devices and more particularly to an upper body exercise device for people of all ages.
Many means of exercising exist for improving ones muscular tone and for producing an aerobic workout. One popular way of getting aerobic exercise is to take a brisk walk. Walking is a low impact exercise, which does not put excess strain on the body's joints and yet gives strength and tone to the lower body. Unfortunately, the upper body does not get as much of a work out during the act of brisk walking. There are some exercise aids available on the market for exercising the upper body while walking. The most common devices are hand weights, which the user holds in his or her hand while swinging the arms and walking. There are several problems with hand weights however. Firstly, the amount of weight can not be easily adjusted while walking so if a person begins to feel fatigue with a heavy weight he or she can not easily switch to a lighter weight. Second, if the user wishes to discontinue the use of the weights while walking, he or she has no convenient place to put them. Even if a person puts them in a separate bag or pack, the person must still bear the extra weight of the hand weight devices. Finally, there are only a limited number of exercises one can do with traditional hand weights, which include normal arm swinging, arm curling and over head presses. These exercises act on primarily the arm muscles rather than the entire upper body and even then, only in a limited way, on selected muscle groups.